Illinois needs to market its public universities better, increase and better publicize its financial aid programs and evaluate state tuition rates in order to stem the alarming migration of Illinois college-bound students to other states, according to a report from Illinois State University’s Center for the Study of Educational Policy.
Center researchers Erika Hunt and Diane Dean found that a majority of Illinois college-bound students are enrolling in Big 10-like institutions in other states, essentially “paying private institution costs to go to a public university.” Nearly half of the Illinois student migrants only go as far as adjacent states such as Iowa and Wisconsin, and the student migrants typically attend large, nationally-ranked public research universities with a Big 10 culture.
The study, commissioned by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, states that since the 1960s, Illinois has suffered an imbalance of in- and out- migration among college-bound youth. During the 1990s, Illinois had 20,000 students annually migrate to colleges in others states, while ranking only 47th in the nation for out-of-state students brought into Illinois. Between 1992 and 2002 alone, Illinois exported 66,000 more students than it imported, enough to populate many of the state’s small towns. Accordingly, Illinois consistently ranks as the second highest net negative exporter of college students in the U.S.
Conducted by Center researchers Diane Dean and Erika Hunt, with the assistance of Ryan Smith at Joliet Junior College, the study examined the problem of student-migration in Illinois, revealing what matters most to Illinois college-bound students and their parents in choosing a college, and disclosing the perceptions that students, their parents and high-school guidance counselors hold concerning the various options for postsecondary education.
According to the report, Illinois needs to market its public universities better, evaluate state tuition rates and institutional capacity, and improve affordability in order to stem the alarming migration of Illinois college-bound students to other states. The loss of the best and brightest college-bound students may result not only in a brain drain, but also in a loss of business taxes and productivity – a loss of income tax revenues to the possible tune of $700 million over the lifetime of each class of student migrants.
“The problem with sending Illinois youth out of state to college is that few will return,” says Dean. “Research clearly indicates that once a state resident migrates to another state to attend college, they are less likely to return upon graduation. Even those who initially return are more likely to move away again within a short time.”
Students perceptions of first-choice universities are firmly tied to several criteria: national rankings, subjective reputations, prestige, and the extent to which they believe that the student body holds values, goals, and a social structure similar to their own.
Large numbers of students attend institutions that are limited or not available in Illinois such as Big 10 research universities with prominent athletic programs, selective liberal arts colleges and historically black colleges and universities. From an economic perspective, students seemed to believe that the benefits of attending an out-of-state college are higher than the costs, and that most out-of-state alternatives are simply a better value.
Dean and Hunt offered the following recommendations to keep Illinois students in state:
• Initiate a current and comprehensive tuition analysis that compares tuition price and total college costs as well as types of aid awarded and average award sizes between Illinois colleges and our top exporting colleges and universities.
• Initiate a good-to-great funding program that provides incentives for campuses to create one or more programs of excellence, making already outstanding programs among the best in the nation
• Launch a public marketing campaign for Illinois colleges and universities to increase public awareness of range and quality of Illinois colleges and universities
• Review capacity by conducting a system-wide review of higher education, looking at college locations, range of institution types, enrollment capacity and specific program offerings, quality and capacity.
• Host a symposium on the topic of student migration, inviting public and private university representatives as well as high school guidance counselors and college students who attend out of state institutions with the goal of developing institutional strategies for retaining more students in state.
The complete study can be found at: http://www.coe.ilstu.edu/eafdept/centerforedpolicy/initiatives/migrationstudy.shtml
